Dobby Derby

Yes, it is official. I have started driving in Dobby. Our taxi traumas are a thing of the past! But, as with many things, eliminating one thing opens up a vacuum. And in this case, that vacuum has been filled—the delightful horror of which I can only attempt to describe in the rest of this post.

At first glance, Dobby is a very modern city, with posh, glitzy stuff everywhere. This is the first glance. The second, third, and many glances later start to crack this façade; in some cases shattering it completely. For example, there are fabulous high rise towers in this city, with beautiful architecture and interesting designs. Glamorous! But, no one thought to build any extra parking lots to accommodate all the people who will supposedly be living and working in these buildings. So everyone has to park in one of the few buildings that has parking (built in the 1980s), creating—as you can imagine—a complete cluster-f*^#% on the way to and from work! Swanky Dobby is reduced to Sh**%@ Dobby very quickly when finding parking takes more than an hour.

Further, the “new” part of Dobby is the most glamorous. The “old” part of Dobby is quite depressing. And impossible to navigate, as I can personally attest to having completely lost myself twice in this area on what was supposed to be an “easy” trip to a mall. Several hours later, after many tearful calls to Harry, a completely numb bladder, (and surviving the gross stares of the men walking in the streets—this city is something like 70 % men), I found myself back on our side of town after traveling around the airport, a major industrial area, several colleges for Emiraitis, and almost all the way to the neighboring city. While distances here are not on par with some cities in the US, Dobby is actually quite spread out so getting anywhere takes time.

Since these physically and emotionally painful experiences, I have become a bit critical about the driving situation. But there are some things to laugh about. First, the problems:

1. Some people (i.e. locals) don’t seem to care about loss of life. Let’s call this the “Inshallah factor”. If today is your day to die, so be it! I do not subscribe to this way of thinking. (It also really only works if you are a local. Concepts of negligence and duties to others seem to have little legal teeth here—if you are an expat though, you will likely be blamed in incidents with locals regardless of fault—and regardless of God’s will!).

2. The roads seem cool and sophisticated at first. But in reality, they are poorly planned. There is basically one route to any given location, so if you miss a turn or an exit, you are completely screwed—it will take an hour to correct it! The medians on most roads are fences, which means you cannot turn left except very rarely, and most traffic lights are so poorly timed it can take half an hour to go through one intersection or round-about.

3. Navigation is by neighborhood. Arabic-named neighborhood. For me to go from my house to where I teach dance class, I must know the four or five neighborhoods in between, follow the signs precisely (which sometimes give you about ten feet to change across three lanes of traffic) and not let my directional sense get in the way as often you must go in the opposite way from where you feel you are supposed to go because turns are so restricted. Plus, visibility is limited thanks to all the Range Rovers and big trucks on the roads.

4. Some streets have names (mostly named for Sheikh's—which makes it hard to remember which street is which). But these names usually are not labeled at intersections—if they are labeled at all. Every neighborhood has a collection of numbered streets in no logical order. So for example, I turn onto street 22, which intersects with street 7, where I turn for our building. I have not seen a street 8 or 9 or 23 in our neighborhood, although every neighborhood seems to have a 7 and a 22. Go figure!

5. Using turn signals must indicate weakness. Or many drivers are just ignorant about the function of the turn signal. As a result, cars change lanes with no warning, and often they do not even look to see if someone is already there. In the middle of rush hour traffic why would anyone be "there" anyway?

6. TRAFFIC. This is truly indescribable. And I have lived in Los Angeles, near San Francisco, in Dallas, and spent time in Paris, New York, and other places. Grid lock can get so bad it can literally take hours to go a few kilometers. This problem is of course exacerbated by points 1-5, and especially number 2. Rather than miss a turn, people will just stop in the middle of the road and force their way across other lanes to the exit or turn, even backing up sometimes. At first I was horrified by this behavior. But now I understand—if you miss that bloody turn you will need two hours to get back to try again!!

But there are some positives to complement this problematic scenario. Traffic issues are a constant source of public discussion. Construction projects are everywhere, and include a train and several more bridges and ring roads in crucial areas. And best of all, we have the government office in charge of roads and traffic, which regularly communicates with the public through the local papers and road signs. These ads alone are almost worth the traffic problems:

1. “We are working on it!” (Desperate sounding half-page add in the morning paper—listing all the projects and when they should be done against a background of the ideal traffic flow of three cars on a major highway).

2. “Good-Driver Reward Program—Drive well and you could win 750 dirhams!” (The police drive around and pull over 15 people per day they think are driving well—i.e. using signals and not being overly aggressive—then they give them money instead of a ticket and announce their names on the radio. Seems like a good idea, but shouldn’t the police be pulling the bad drivers over?).

3..“Speeding is a Sin. Speeders are Sinners." (I think this likely makes more sense in Arabic than English—but the overall strategy of getting Allah involved is probably good.)

4. And my favorite: “Opinion Polls—What do you think about the Traffic Situation?” (I have not been interviewed, but some ladies I know were polled by policemen at their kids’ school. One lady said she talked to the guy for 45 minutes and told him everything she thought about the roads, drivers, locals, all of it. She said his eyes got bigger and bigger and finally the interview ended with a weak “thank-you madam………”.

I am not sure which oughtweighs which--the negatives or positives. While contemplating this post this morning at the gym, I tried to distill my thoughts into one piece of advice for anyone driving in this enticing city. Although there are so many things to consider on the road, there really is only one thing that stands clear as a "must": always use the loo before you get in the car. Always! You never know how long you are going to be out there in the fray.

Case in point—after having my great thought this morning I followed my own advice, got in the car, and headed home. At the first intersection I got rear-ended by, funnily enough, a henna-dye-bearded-Pakistani dude in a 1994 Teal Toyota Tercel (heheheh—for those of you that know our old car). We both jumped out of our cars, looked at the damage, made phone calls, etc. I decided no real damage had been done, but the whole process took a while. So getting home took an hour instead of 30 minutes. My bladder thanked me for following my advice. Yours will too.